


In case you don't live forever

by nanasteiger



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Buck have nightmare about the tsunami, Eddie is actually afraid of letting Buck in his and Chris life, Eddie is angry at Buck, Eventual Romance, M/M, Post-Tsunami, also Buck and Maddie parents are bad people in this fic, because being a fire fighter is fucking dangerous, he just want to know Chris is okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 12:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20907383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanasteiger/pseuds/nanasteiger
Summary: “I tried, Eddie, please believe me. I tried to keep him safe and we were…” the images were never not haunting him. It took a second, a moment of distraction, yet another incoming wave and more people adrift in the water, and then Christopher was gone. “I know you think he’s not safe with me and I get that, I just…”“No, you don’t understand, Buck. You can’t imagine, you…” he stopped, the intake of breath somehow louder than his words. “I thought Christopher was dead. You were dead. I truly believed I lost you both and I can’t. I don’t want you around me and Chris anymore. I can’t go through this again and you can bet I won’t allow Christopher."





	In case you don't live forever

**Author's Note:**

> I had an idea, i developed the idea, and i ACTUALLY wrote it down (and more than 4k words were written. I'm shook). This hasn't happened in literal years and I'm very glad I could do it for this fandom. This fic it has actually DIALOGUES, and this hasn't happen in much longer. I just wanted to read something with plot and it came to my mind that if I really wanted I could write it myself! Wow, that's new.  
The story is set approximately a month after the tsunami, Buck hasn't seen nor heard from Eddie for all this time because after it Eddie told him to stay away. Buck thinks that it's because Eddie is mad at him for bringing Chris to the pier and putting in danger and losing him during the last wave. It's actually more complicated than that.  
The title is from a song from Ben Platt, named "In case you don't live forever", please go listen to it because it's the perfect Buddie song.  
Also please remind that English is not my first language and there could be some grammatical mistakes i'd be very grateful if you'd make me notice them.

_“I spy with my Little Eye…” Christopher looks around trying to guess what the object will be even before he even says it. “I spy with my little eye something shiny.”_

_“Is it the sun?”_

_Buck just laughs, then tightens his grip on his shoulders. “No, it’s not the sun.”_

_He looks down at the kid, who’s smiling at the sky, hair still wet and already friends with one of the girls on the fire truck roof with them. He invited her to play with them but she declined, saying that she can be Chris’ assistant if he needs help finding something. He truly is the most amazing kid. Buck is not going to lose him ever again, when all of this will be over he doesn’t know if he could stand being away too long._

The uber left Buck right in front of Eddie’s house and even if it had passed not even a month since he was last here, it felt like years. The building was still painted a dark orange, the windows still had the same curtains left just an inch open, the small lawn in the front still had Chris’ bike parked near the stairs. 

He hadn’t seen nor heard from his friend or Chris in weeks and he knew that Eddie was mad at him, rightfully so, but he just had to check. He wanted to see Chris, needed to, so maybe he could go back home and finally, _finally_ sleep. 

His leg had been bothering him less these days, thanks to the new PT program, but since that damn afternoon and because of the stress he had put on it during the tsunami, the doctors imposed him to always use at least one crutch when he needed to walk. It didn’t bother him so much anymore. 

He walked, incredibly slowly, to Eddie’s door and knocked three times, like he has always done. 

He could hear Eddie’s step from the other side of the door, echoing in the silence of this broken city, but then, when he knew he was just on the other side, with his hand on the handle, he didn’t open. Eddie was there, not many inches away from him, and he was struggling to open the door and face him. 

Buck didn’t want to walk away but took a step back. He could wait. He could sit on the steps all night, with his leg stretched maybe, waiting for Eddie to be ready. 

Fortunately it didn’t take that much and after a couple of long seconds the door opened, slowly. 

“What do you want, Buck.” 

Eddie’s face was dark, covered by the shadows from the lights coming from inside the house. He looked tired and more nervous than angry. Unlike the last time he saw him.

_“How could you? You lost him. You lost my son just because you needed to be the fucking hero of the situation, didn’t you? He was alone and scared and I could have lost him forever. Grow up, Buck. Don’t ever come near us again.”_

Buck had a whole speech mapped out. He rehearsed it multiple times in the last days. Under the shower, in front of the mirror, in the uber just a couple of minutes ago. He wanted to apologize, lighten up the mood with a couple of very sensitive, well timed jokes. He just wanted to ask if he could see Chris for a minute, even from afar, even without Chris seeing him. He just wanted to make sure that he was safe. 

“Hi,” he just said instead “how are you?”

When he took a step forward, Eddie flinched. He saw him take a shaky breath and moved from the door to let him in. Buck just wanted to shake him and beg him to forgive him. To make everything like it was _before_. 

For Buck there was always a _before_ and an _after _\- there was a Buck 1.0 and an Abby-less Buck - and that new Buck was hurt but tired of the hook-ups and searching for a serious relationship. There was a _before the crash _Buck and an _after the crash _Buck. He didn’t like that version, it was gloomy and depressed and more reckless than he ever was because he didn’t care _how_ but he needed to go back to the station, just to feel like a person again. Now there was a _before the tsunami _Buck and who he was in that moment, _after the tsunami_ Buck. 

He was still not sure how much he liked himself in this new dress. He felt calmer somehow, more focused on what’s really important in life. But he also felt like the calm had had a price. Every step forward, every step stronger in his battered leg, felt like a punishment. He had this, but he lost Eddie. He could have his job back if he waited and went to the doctor and worked on his mental health, but Eddie was looking at him like he was the worst person on the planet and he was afraid this could not be repaired. 

“I just want to see Christopher.”

“He’s sleeping.” he said without even trying to hide the ice from his gaze. Buck took another step inside the house, trying to make himself look smaller somehow, barely touching the floor with the crutch to make less noise as possible.

“Yeah, I guessed so. This is why I came so late. I don’t need to talk to him or anything. I just need to see him. Watch him for a minute and… just make sure that he’s fine.”

Buck wanted to know if Chris had nightmares and to ask if he knew how to make them go away, still unsure if to give or ask for advice on the matter, if the water was haunting him too. He wanted to know if he had trouble breathing sometimes, if he was scared or worried. 

“Please, go away,'' Eddie said without even looking at him. His voice was stern and cold and his empty gaze was directed toward the hallway. Following his blank stare, he understood that he turned to Chris’ room, like his eyes could see through walls and doors and he could look at his son sleeping in his bed.

“I… Eddie, please…”

Buck was really trying to keep his voice still and his hands from shaking but the more time passed, the more stretched seconds filled with that awful silence struck, the more he started to feel his will fade. He couldn’t handle his best friend not even being able to look at him, he couldn’t stand the idea that it finally happened, he has been able to ruin this. 

“Eddie, I know that what happened…”

“I don’t want you here. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to hear your voice,” Buck could see Eddie’s fists clench on his sides and for a moment hoped that, for once in his life, the man in front of him could just be the person that solves everything with violence. He hoped for a couple of punches so he could feel a little bit better with himself, to atone some of the guilt. “And I really think you should stay away from my son.” 

“Don’t do this to me,” his voice cracked slightly. He just needed to remember parts of his speech, Maddie said it would work. “I know that you’re angry, that… I know that I should I have told you when we decided to go to the pier instead of the theater like we talked…” 

He didn’t remember when he started pacing, slowly but steadily, walking away for the dark aura radiating from Eddie, but when he found himself in the kitchen he stopped at the sink, placing carefully the crutch beside the fridge and holding on the counter trying to calm his breathing. He had to go through it, to say it all at once so he won’t cry or panic. Then he saw the red and black glasses, left right there, still broken, one lens was still missing and the other had a crack on the side, abandoned near the window just in front of his eyes. Placed there like a token of everything he was trying not to think about. 

The last time he had held those glasses was the last time he saw the kid. He just wanted to give Christopher his glasses back.

_The moment he sees the glasses in the water he thinks it’s over. _That’s it. Christopher is dead_. Christopher is somewhere under water, his pretty, red glasses afloat, carried by the tide, so light and fragile, while their owner is missing, nowhere to be seen or heard, not screaming for help. Buck catches them just in time because he needs to hold onto something. _

_He doesn’t let horror and despair control him and holds onto the idea that if Christopher is alive, when he’ll find him, he’ll need his glasses. That’s the least he can do for him. _

He reached for them but then his hand just fell on the cold marble of the counter. The glasses were there because they were broken, not because there was no more kid that needed them. Chris probably already had a new pair, just as shiny, just as pretty. He felt like he couldn’t breathe and he knew he had to convince Eddie.

“I know I made a mistake and I’ll never forgive myself and I’m not asking you to. But I beg you, let me see him, for a second, and then I’ll go.” 

On any other day, in any other situation, Eddie would have stepped right beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. He would have sensed the utter despair in his words and would have helped him. When he was still in his first cast, almost bed-ridden and forced to rely on other people's help for anything, Eddie made sure to be there. After every shift at the station he would stop by and chat with him, just not to make him feel alone. He was with him when his leg hurt so much he could only cry, when his head kept telling him that he would never walk again, would never be a fire-fighter again. He was there when he had to scream and be angry, but he was there also when he felt good and wanted to order thai and rewatch _Friends_ on Netflix. Eddie literally put him on his feet again just treating him feel like a person and not a patient, talking to him about his day and his family and funny accidents they had on the last shift. He made him laugh and brought pies from his aunt and drawings from Chris. 

In that moment he could only feel waves of rage coming from the man he thought was his best friend, just waiting for him to finally fuck off and never show his face ever again.

“I tried, Eddie, please believe me. I tried to keep him safe and we were…” the images were never not haunting him. It took a second, a moment of distraction, yet another wave incoming and more people adrift in the water, and then Christopher was gone. “I know you think he’s not safe with me and I get that, I just…”

“No, you don’t _get it_, Buck. You can’t understand. You can’t even imagine, you…” he stopped, the intake of breath somehow louder than his words. “I thought Christopher was dead. You were dead. I truly believed I lost you both and I can’t. I don’t want you around me and Chris anymore. I can’t go through this again and you can bet I won’t allow Christopher. You are a fire-fighter…”

“So are you!” he wasn’t even trying to hide how much close to crying he was. 

“I’m his father. I can’t and I don’t want to get out of this. And this is the life that I choose and yes, sometimes it kills me, it makes me feel selfish, like I’m putting my choices in front of my kid’s needs.” Buck already knew this, they talked about it, Eddie had shared his fears when Buck was once again complaining about how much he missed the thrill and the adrenaline, how much he missed his job. “But there are other times I think that this is how I have to give back, this is how I protect and shelter my son. Being a fire-fighter, teaching him how to stay safe and always being the first in line if something should happen to him again…”

“I don’t understand… then why I can’t see him or… or you…”

“You are a fire-fighter.” 

From where he was, he could see that Eddie wanted to scream, his face was red and his eyes were finally fixed on him. He was trying to say something else by just looking at him.

“I actually am not, not anymore, remember? I quit.”

“But you are! They can take away your badge and your uniform but that doesn’t mean that you’ll stop running into fire, trying to save every cat from a three o child from a collapsing house you if could. You still would risk your life for strangers. That’s who you are!”

“So you are not mad at me because I took him to the pier, you are mad because of who I am as a person,” he honestly didn’t know if it was a relief or should feel more hurt. 

“Buck… I am not mad at you…” Eddie said with less force, with an impatient tone, like he was talking to a baby. “Christopher adores you. He told me that you are his best friend, a couple of weeks ago, but...”

“_Me and you, we make a great team,” Buck says, and he knows that it’s true, “give me a high five. I’m proud of you.”_

_They are rocking this situation, they are safe on the truck, Christopher is smiling and they truly saved each other. The kid probably doesn’t understand how much he had helped him earlier. His attitude toward life is everything he needed, and he might be scratched and his leg might hurt, but he has the kid with him, they just faced a tsunami but they have each other. Eddie did great with him._

“He has just lost his mother and he still doesn’t understand why. I can’t allow him to love a person who risks his life every day, not now, probably not ever”

“You can’t decide who people are allowed to love, Eddie.”

No one can. No one can just force you to love someone and for sure no one can stop loving when convenient. If it could be possible, Buck would have stopped loving them both, or at least he would have tried. The little Diaz family was just stuck between his ribs and there were moments where he just wanted to open his chest and try to pry them away even before all of this. They were too good, he didn’t deserve them. 

Buck knew he had to go, he grabbed the crutch and really leaned on it. His whole body was so tense he felt bright shots of pain crawling along his leg. He braced himself, closing his eyes to hide the tears, and tried one last time. 

“Eddie, Eddie… listen to me, please. I swear to you that I’m going, once I’m finished talking I’ll go and never come back, even if it’ll be the hardest, most painful thing that ever happen to me but if that’s what you want, I’ll go.” 

He couldn’t open his eyes, couldn’t see Eddie’s beautiful face when he spoke again and fuck the whole speech, he had so much to say. 

“Your son is my hero,” he laughed. “Your son makes me want to have a family, makes me want to be a better father than the one I had growing up. I always thought that I’d be a shitty dad, you know? That a lot of my problems with commitment and stuff like that came from my family, from the example they set for me. For years, I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t find a nice person to settle with because settling would mean taking care of people. I _shouldn't - _I shouldn’t because I didn’t deserve it. Because I wasn't able to be there, and care, and really love someone so much to put them before my needs because I didn’t know how. I thought I shouldn’t have a family, have a kid, because they’d be doomed, destined to feel neglected, and I didn’t want to impose that feeling on anyone.”

His stomach turned from thinking about his father, just for a second. For such a long time he really thought that he was unlovable and broken because of him.

“Then you showed up and Christopher entered my life and I just… I started caring and then the tsunami… Eddie, the tsunami…” and Buck knew that he could love and be loved and it was so unjust that it had to happen when he was sure that he had lost it all. 

“I keep having these nightmares that keep me awake every single night. I am afraid to go to bed, to close my eyes because if I do, I'll see it all over again. I’ll see the waves and the water and the dead bodies floating and Christopher’s glasses and… I dream of the moment I lost him, I try to do it differently every time but he dies, every night, right in front of my eyes. I dream the wet clothes that kept tugging me down and I can’t swim, I can’t move, and my leg is broken again and Chris’ voice so far away, screaming my name, and I hear him die…”

When he started to cry, his eyes closed not being able to keep his tears at bay for longer, he felt like he could never stop. They kept coming, and even if he had cried so much recently, he knew he still had to give. It felt like all the water from the ocean from that day was still inside him, around him, and needed a way to get out. It felt like drowning in his own tears, face wet and breath short. 

“I know I’m just fun-kinda-grown-up-best-friend Bucky, _let go eat all the sugar dad doesn’t let me eat _Buck, but I love him Eddie and… I love you, too.” He tried to smile, more of a snotty, wet grimace, to make him understand. “I love you because you changed my life.”

_In the water, after the first wave, it’s all Buck can think about. _I haven’t told Eddie that I love him. _He can’t hear, can barely see through the green slimy water of the pier and his leg is hurting him like crazy but when he’s trying to understand where’s up, he just thinks that he should tell him as soon as he sees him. Very romantic, very dramatic, they’ll hug, still shaken, Eddie will come to save them and then they’ll hug and he’ll tell him. _

_He’s scared he never will be able to, he should have told him before, every day, before every shift, in case they didn’t get to live longer, in case he didn’t live forever. _

“I love you because from the first moment I saw you, you challenged me to be better and now I am. You kept me up and I fought like hell for you and your kid, for you to be together again, to go back to you both. I never thought I deserved a family but you gave me one anyway and I am not ready to let it go. Please, don’t take it away from me.”

“Buck…”

When both his legs finally gave up and he slowly crawled on the floor, Eddie was in front of him. 

His hands went to his face and when Buck tried to shy him away his grip tightened, his palms warm and calming were open and engulfed him, allowing him to breathe. His lips touched his forehead and he felt his shoulder relax within seconds. He doesn’t know what it meant, if Eddie had forgiven him, if he was pitying him, if he was just saying a kind goodbye, but part of him was only relieved that he had the chance to finally say it out loud. 

“Buck…” still crying he tilted his head toward his voice and only then opened his eyes. “Buck, I love you more than you'll ever wrap your head around.”

Eddie’s tone is delicate, so different from before, it made his head spin. He was looking at him with the same scared, guarded look as when he opened the door, tired and nervous, but softer. 

“I’ve loved you for so long, Buck, I don’t remember how it was my life before it started. I loved you when I was alone, when I was with Shannon, when I was mourning her loss and I felt so guilty about it. I loved you so much more the second you met Christopher because of how gentle you are with him, because you know how to make him feel like… like just a kid. I loved you because he loved you. But I’m scared, so scared all the fucking time. I don’t know how to deal with this fear of losing you.” Eddie’s finger caressed lightly his face, wiping away the tears that were still falling, catching them as soon as they left his eyes. “I love you so much but what would I do, what we’d do if something even worse happens? Christopher...“

“Your son is a soldier.”

“My son is a freaking angel but he’s so little and he has already dealt with so much grief. Shannon died in a car accident, you want to jump in falling buildings and go through fire and…” and Eddie just kissed him. Eyes shut, arms gripping, mouth hard, like he just couldn’t hold back anymore and one more thought of him not surviving a call was too much. Buck had had the same instinct so many times, watching Eddie climb houses on fire, making it out just in time, those seconds stretched so thin between life and death. He sat straighter and held on his hands to keep him there just a little longer. 

“I know you’re scared, I am too,” he said right on his lips. “I’m not there anymore, and I don’t know when or if I’ll be able to be your partner again and it kills me… Knowing that you’re out there, risking your life every day, I can’t do anything about it but, please, Eddie, don’t push me away.” 

“I am beyond scared” and it was clear that he truly was, it was written all over his face “I am terrified, and I am sorry…”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” he tried to argue. Eddie just kissed him again to shut him up.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so hash. I’m sorry I reacted that way and pushed you away and made you think this was all your fault.”

Buck can still hear the _Go away! _and the_ I don’t want to hear your voice_ and he tried to compare the person who said those words with the man kneeled in front of him. It looked like a string had snapped, a thread that was keeping him standing, and now he could just grovel on him, laying on the ground, heavy with all their fears. He tried to compare him with the scared man on the pier, _He was alone and scared and I could have lost him forever _really meant that Eddie felt alone and Eddie was scared and he could have lost Chris and Buck forever. He knew he couldn’t ask him to let him stay in his life, to love him, to let him love him, but that didn’t mean he was ready to let them go. 

“When I discovered you two were in the middle of that chaos I lost my mind. And I know you did everything you could to keep my son safe but I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t myself. And I was mad because it made me realize that I loved you so much that it probably is not healthy anymore and I was losing someone I care about all over again.” Eddie’s knuckles turned white on the grip he had on Buck’s shirt and he could only keep talking, unable to stop, not even when Buck moved him on his lap, keeping as close as he could. “I was mad at God and whoever is pulling the strings on us. I thought that keeping you away, far from Christopher and I, would help you… I thought you’d be better without me. It was your get-out-of-jail card, it was my way of keeping you safe.”

“I can’t promise you that I’ll never be in the middle of danger and I know you can’t neither. No one really can,” he whispered, kissing him here and there, bringing him closer and closer. “But I can promise you to always be careful and try every day, as hard as I can, to come back to you and Chris.” 

Eddie’s head leaned on his shoulder and he could hear him crying. His whole body shaking with sobs that he guessed he wasn’t able to let go before. Days, weeks, months worth of crying were been released and Buck was glad that he was finally able to let go, that he was trusting him with his deepest despair and he was holding onto him to try to stay afloat in the middle of his own personal ocean of nightmares.

“You’d be an amazing dad,” he said, when he was calm enough to talk. “Do not ever think you wouldn’t be one. I know that your family was messed up but you grew up to be so kind and gentle and… you should definitely be one, you can be Christopher’s, if you want.” 

The laughter that erupted from his chest shook him stronger than the sobs. 

“I’d love to.” 

When they heard the little steps coming from the hallway, Eddie gave him one last kiss and turned toward the door. 

“Hey, Bucky…” Chris’ voice was drowsy and dreamy but he smiled even if it was almost two in the morning and they were waking him up from an already deep sleep. “It’s really you?” 

“Yes, buddy. It’s me.” 

Chris sleepily walked up to them and put one arm up. Buck was happy to close the distance and hug him. There was nothing he wanted more than to stay there, tightly wrapped in that hug for all night. Eddie sat right next to him, both crying messes, one hand on his thigh. Christopher was alive, he was really there, a living breathing weight on his shoulder and he never felt happier and complete. 

“Do you want to sleep with us in the big bed tonight, kid?”

He nodded against his chest and Buck smiled at both of them, surprised. When Eddie stood up and easily lifted his son from the embrace to place him on his hip, he was smiling too. 

“Are you staying here?” 

“Yes, as long as you let me.” 


End file.
